


Apartment Ficlets (Ficlets III)

by PlatonicRabbit



Series: Ficlets and Tumblr Prompts [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Ficlet Collection, Gabriel Lives, Janitor!Gabriel - Freeform, Language Barrier, M/M, Russian speaking!Gabriel, Russian!Lucifer, drug use mentions in one chapter, season 11 canon divergence, sorta - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-14
Updated: 2016-06-05
Packaged: 2018-06-08 07:32:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6845017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PlatonicRabbit/pseuds/PlatonicRabbit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ficlets based on a prompt set from May 2016</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Incident of the Mysterious Sex Noises

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous asked:  
> 'I keep hearing loud sex noises coming from your apartment yet nobody else ever seems to come out and I need to figure out what your deal is before it drives me nuts’ AU maybe with Sabriel, because it would fit with those two.

For the fifth time in one week, Gabriel woke to the sound of his attractive new neighbour getting some. Loudly.

Normally Gabriel would find this really depressing, but he was channeling that into burning curiosity.

Sam lived alone.  
Their building had walls that were like tissue.  
And his front door and bedroom were right next to Gabriel’s room.

Gabriel was entirely certain Sam had been alone in that apartment two hours ago when he’d gone to drop off his borrowed lasagna dish (Sam was a good neighbour like that).  
Which meant Sam’s mysterious partner (because there were two distinct voices every time) was sneaking in every night through a sixth floor bathroom window that was about as wide as Gabriel’s forearm and only opened halfway.  
Although Gabriel had noticed the moans sounded suspiciously similar every night. In fact he’d almost say it was a soundtrack. So he supposed it was possible the guy liked his porn insanely loud and didn’t care if he woke up half the building.

Whether Sam had actual company or not, Gabriel decided, it was still a shitty thing to do. He folded his pillow over his ears and forced his eyes shut again.

 

After that night, thankfully, the noise stopped. Gabriel had three nights in a row of uninterrupted sleep.

Until the afternoon he arrived home to find an old black car parked outside.

Gabriel vaguely remembered that car from when Sam had moved in. Its driver had helped Sam cart his meager few possessions and pieces of furniture to his new apartment.

Gabriel had dismissed the guy as a boyfriend, and a scary one if that car was anything to go by.  
You could probably fit a body in that car’s boot. Especially a body as small as Gabriel’s.

The boyfriend was leaving as Gabriel arrived home, a wide smile that Gabriel knew very well spread across his face. It was the smile of a fellow trickster after a successful prank. He nodded to the man in acknowledgement as they passed each other in the stairwell.

To Gabriel’s surprise, the guy stopped him.

‘Hey, short guy, you’re Sammy’s neighbour, right?’

Gabriel nodded warily. Now came the “back off or I’ll leave your body in an unmarked grave” speech. Or it would, if Gabriel had ever communicated even the slightest bit of his interest to Sam.

‘How did it go? Really? He won’t tell me and I wasn’t here, so…’

Gabriel really hoped the guy wasn’t asking what he thought he was.

‘Yes, whatever you gave him made him make pornstar noises. All week. It was awkward for everyone,’ Gabriel tried to leave.

‘Woah, hey, shorty, misunderstanding here.’ The guy called him back.

Gabriel stopped, containing a sigh.

‘That was a prank, dude. Sam’s in there dying from embarrassment because of what you must think of him.’

If there was one thing that caught Gabriel’s attention, it was a masterfully executed trick. He half turned around. ‘A prank, you say?’

The guy grinned. ‘Yeah. Oh, uh,’ he held out his hand. ‘Dean Winchester, by the way. Sam’s brother.’

This situation was getting better and better by the minute. Sam did not have a boyfriend who was twice Gabriel’s size and owned a car you could stash a corpse in. 

He also apparently wasn’t responsible for the disturbing noises plaguing the apartment complex.

Dean was speaking again, gesturing with a disposable phone in his hand. ‘I just recorded sex noises, copied them onto here, set them as the ringtone, turned the volume up high, hid the phone somewhere in the walls of Sammy’s house, and called him at random intervals til the battery ran out.’

Gabriel’s eyes gleamed. ‘So the noises were your fault, then?’

‘Yup,’ Dean tossed the phone from one hand to the other. ‘I’m going home to recharge it so I can hide it again.’

Gabriel grinned at him. ‘Or… You could leave it with me, and I’ll drop it off for you. I have the advantage of being closer. I can move the phone if he gets too close. And I know the building better.’

Dean hesitated. ‘Alright. As long as you record some of his reactions for me.’

They shook on it, Dean subtly passing the phone into Gabriel’s hand. If Sam happened to be watching the conversation from upstairs the exchange might have passed as innocuous.

 

Gabriel spent three hours charging the phone up. When he heard Sam get into bed that night he lowered it slowly through the one of the holes on his side of the wall (his brothers had been terrible roommates and not considerate enough to pay for repairs when they moved out) into the thin space between his apartment and Sam’s.

Gabriel had never seen the inside of Sam’s apartment but based on the noises that came through the walls every night as Sam got ready for bed, he’d guess the phone was very close to the man’s sleeping head right now.  
He called the phone from his landline, remembering to set his own mobile to record to send to Dean later.  
Loud, loud moans came through the walls.

‘Goddammit, Dean!’ Sam shouted a moment later.

Gabriel let the phone ring for almost thirty seconds before ending the call.

Sam had obviously guessed whereabouts the noise was coming from, because it sounded like he was moving things around near the wall, still probably thinking the device was on his side of it. Gabriel cackled to himself and flopped down on his bed, kicking the mountain of blankets aside.

 

Three hours later, Gabriel woke up to get a drink. On the way back to bed, he pulled out his phone and called Sam.  
He hung up almost immediately this time, but the ensuing swearing fit was explicit enough to have Gabriel giggling himself back to sleep.

 

In the morning, Gabriel reached into the wall and retrieved the phone. 

Sam had to leave for work a full hour before him, so Gabriel took advantage of their building’s dangerously insecure locks and slipped into Sam’s apartment, hiding the phone in his kitchen ceiling light this time.

 

The reaction was worse the next night. Particularly when the cranky balding business man living on the other side of Sam started banging on the walls and yelling.

Although Gabriel did feel a little bad for Sam by the time he’d finally managed to apologize to Mr. Zachariah.

 

Planning on moving the phone again, Gabriel waited the next morning until he’d heard Sam’s door open and close, and enough time had passed that he could be sure the man hadn’t forgotten something and turned around.

When he got into Sam’s apartment, the man was sitting at the kitchen table, leveling an impressive bitchface at Gabriel.

‘Uh…’ Gabriel thought about backing out of the room. Decided against it. Standing his ground was good. Probably.

‘Hey, Gabe.’ Sam said. ‘Dean wasn’t here yesterday. So the phone being moved made me think he’d recruited help. Plus, it was clearly on your side of the wall the other night.’

Gabriel groaned internally.

‘And I’m usually rostered on all day Thursdays, and neither you nor Dean had any idea I swapped my shift with Brady this week, and I decided to keep it that way. See what happened.’ Sam looked entirely too smug about all of this.  
‘So, you’re going to go and get the phone, and give it to me, and I’m going to break it in half.’

Gabriel nodded wordlessly and climbed up onto the table to retrieve the phone from inside the light.  
He supposed he was lucky Sam wasn’t calling the police on him for breaking and entering.

When Gabriel jumped back down, Sam was staring at his midsection, where the shorter man realised his shirt had ridden up. He pulled it down and glared at Sam, who looked back up at Gabriel’s face, seemingly embarrassed at being caught staring, and held his hand out for the phone, which Gabriel mournfully handed to him.

He left Sam’s apartment and trudged off to get ready for work.

 

Gabriel worked a double shift that day and didn’t arrive home until after midnight.

When he lay his head down on the pillow only for the phone hidden inside the pillowcase to blare porn noises right into his ear a minute later, he wasn’t really surprised. 

 

In the morning, Gabriel decided to help Sam get revenge on Dean.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things I'm learning from this prompt set: I can't write when I'm sick.


	2. The Incident with the Custodian

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> wordssometimesfail asked:  
> ‘Ok when I pictured the custodian, I was thinking Old Dude With Coveralls, not…you!’ AU

Sam didn’t know why he was surprised. After all, he’d seen this disguise before.  
It was even the same damn uniform.

For a moment, it was like stepping back in time a decade, to when there hadn’t been angels and demons and apocalypses to deal with every week.

The case had been simple enough- It had looked like a routine vengeful spirit, salt and burn.  
That had been how it had begun the first time, too.

When Sam and Dean had arrived at the college campus (looking back on this he was starting to think the similarities were intentional) he’d been directed to ask questions to the only witness of the death, the dorm’s custodian. Dean had gone to check out the room for EMF while Sam questioned the witness.

At least he’d chosen to pose as an insurance investigator and not an electrician.

 

The archangel broke into a huge grin and waved his hands excitedly as Sam approached.

‘Here I was thinking the custodian would be an old guy in coveralls, not… you.’ Sam said, just to have something to say, to look like he wasn’t in mild shock. ‘I thought you were dead. Or retired.’

Gabriel just shrugged. ‘I was. But I figured it was time to get back in the game. If daddy-o and big brother can put aside their differences, I can too.’

Sam blinked. ‘Then why the charade? Why not just drop by the bunker and join us?’

‘Well, for starters, I don’t know where it is,’ Gabriel said. ‘Although I think by this point I may be the only one still in the dark on that.'

Sam scowled. He didn’t enjoy thinking about all the security lapses that had led to the bunker becoming something akin to a bed & breakfast for most of the Winchester’s enemies.

‘And, Sam, have you forgotten that quickly? I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t lead you on a wild goose chase for dramatic effect. Besides, I figured with all the tension of having dad and Luci bunking in your place, you’d jump at the excuse to run off to Ohio for a couple of days.’

Which was true.  
After the third night Sam had found the case, texted it to Dean and they’d both been out the door by wordless agreement thirty minutes later.  
He wasn’t sure Chuck and Lucifer would have noticed them gone yet.  
Their truce hadn’t lasted as long as Sam had hoped.

Gabriel snapped up a chair for Sam, gesturing for him to sit in it.

Hesitantly, he did so.  
There was a whoopee cushion.

‘Seriously, Gabriel?’ Sam snapped at the archangel, lips compressing into a thin line as he pulled the cushion out and threw it at the angel's face.

‘Wouldn’t be me if I didn’t.’

Sam was getting really sick of that line already. ‘Fine. Whatever. Now, what do you want? Are you going to help us with Amara?’

Gabriel nodded, hands drumming on the table. He pulled a bag of Hershey’s kisses out of his sleeve and popped one into his mouth. ‘I’m going to help out, as long as they both want my help. Which isn’t a given, mind you.’

Sam remembered the day in the Cage when Michael had screamed at Lucifer about him making Gabriel leave Heaven. Lucifer’s retaliation had been brutal, merciless. He’d torn a wing entirely free of Michael’s true form and left him bleeding and screaming before turning to Sam.

He didn’t think Gabriel needed to know that his brother had, in fact, felt bad about killing him.

‘Kiss?’ Gabriel asked, shoving the bag in Sam’s face.

The hunter took one, sure it would explode in his hand or something. It didn’t.  
It tasted nice.

Gabriel sat back down, spinning his wheelie chair in a 360 seemingly for the fun of it, before focusing on Sam. ‘Last time I helped you lot out, the last several times I’ve seen family members, it hasn’t ended well for me.’

Sam nodded, but kept silent, encouraging Gabriel to go on.

‘I just want you to remember that this isn’t easy for me, either, kid. But I’ll help you deal with working with Lucifer, if you do the same for me.’ Asking Sam for help, admitting vulnerability, seemed to almost physically pain Gabriel.

Sam nodded, then stood up. The archangel followed suit.

Sam had an idea.

‘Kiss?’ he asked Gabriel, indicating the bag still in his hand. The angel was frowning and holding his chocolate away from Sam when the hunter leaned down to press a kiss to Gabriel’s lips.

‘To seal the deal, right?’ Sam asked, turning away.

The situation sucked, for both of them.

But maybe they could get through it, together.


	3. The Incident with the Language Barrier

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ‘I’m pretty sure you don’t speak English but for some reason I’ve started telling you about my crappy days while we ride the elevator together and I don’t feel so alone anymore’ AU please? (and Sabriel, if you're taking ships too)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I know literally nothing about the process of becoming a lawyer in the US, so if it seems wrong it’s because it’s based on the Australian system (to the extent I actually know anything about that).
> 
> Drug mention content warning for this chapter.

Sam really wasn’t sure he wanted to talk to the brother of his junkie neighbour (his weird junkie neighbour who woke Sam up singing Russian opera at four in the morning).  
But there was no one else to talk to in his building with four empty apartments, him, and said junkie, and the junkie’s brother (Gabriel, Sam learned eventually after hearing the junkie calling him that) didn’t speak English. The junkie did, in bits and pieces- enough to tell Sam to fuck off when they passed in the halls, but other than that, Sam only heard the two of them conversing in their native tongue.

So unloading the stress of his day onto the guy was okay, right?

Sam hated that he was working such long, boring hours and still getting paid nothing. He’d graduated, with flying colours, and been told that he had to complete his clerkship unpaid. Weeks of frantic searching for a solution had yielded nothing, and eventually Sam had had to take the position he’d been offered.  
At least he didn’t have to pay the firm for his first two years, like some of his less fortunate classmates.

It made for a stressful life of working two full time jobs while living in a hole in the ground even John would turn his nose up at and feeling like he was being suffocated.

Everything else in Sam’s life was being shoved aside just so he could stay afloat, and having somebody like Gabriel who he could rant to, even if the guy didn’t understand a word he said and wouldn’t be interested even if he did, was therapeutic.

 

The shorter man leaned against the elevator railing, listening to Sam almost yelling at him about his crappy life with an expression of mild disinterest while the ancient lift clanked its way up three stories.

It never seemed suspicious to Sam’s over-exhausted mind that Gabriel was always walking down the hall at the same time as him.

Or that the guy had never once tried to tell Sam he didn’t know what he was saying.

 

One day, after a particularly stressful week, Sam didn’t talk to Gabriel. Just collapsed against the wall with his head in his hands and stayed there until the doors reopened.

 

The next morning there was a basket of fresh cookies waiting outside his door, wrapped securely, so the rats wouldn’t get into them.

Lucifer glared at Sam like he wanted to knife him the next time they met. He mumbled something incoherent about “MY cookie dough” and shuffled away.

 

The shared elevator rides, and Sam’s rants, had been going on almost every day for five months when the inevitable happened and the lift stopped dead halfway between floors 2 and 3.

Sam hit the button to alert… someone, hopefully, and pulled out his phone to leave a message on his landlord’s machine. There was, of course, no signal, because only one tiny windowsill in this entire complex had reliable phone reception.

On the bright side, rent was due tomorrow, so if they were still in here by then the landlord would notice his money missing and come looking.

The thought wasn’t very comforting to Sam.

Deciding he may as well get comfortable, he sat down and stretched his legs out.

Gabriel, on the other hand, started pacing.  
And kept pacing.

After fifteen minutes it started to irritate Sam. Especially since he couldn’t just tell Gabriel to lay off a little. The man had started swearing under his breath in mixed Russian and English- well, Lucifer certainly knew enough English swear words, and shouted them at Gabriel enough, that he’d probably picked some up- and was running his hands through his hair.

Another five minutes passed. Gabriel stopped dead in the middle of the tiny box they were trapped in.

‘This sucks,’ He announced. In English.

Sam looked up, eyes wide in horror.

‘Totally the way I wanted to spend my Sunday, stuck for hours in Luc’s nasty apartment building. It’s bad enough being here when I actually get to talk to him and make sure he’s alive.’

Sam had actually registered that his neighbour and his brother were worse off than him. It was one of the reasons he was glad Gabriel (supposedly) didn’t speak English. It made it much easier to complain without feeling guilty or worrying the other man would think Sam was being petty.

Sam stared wide-eyed at Gabriel, the dozens of instances of ranting about actual ongoing legal suits running through his mind. He’d breached confidentiality so many times on the assumption that Gabriel had no idea.

Sam could feel a panic attack coming on. He knew nothing about Gabriel. The shorter man could be employed by another law firm. He could have a connection to one of the cases Sam had told him about. He could have been repeating stories at a bar every night after Sam took the elevator with him.

Gabriel stopped yelling at the lift to look at Sam with concern. ‘Please tell me you’re not claustrophobic, Sam?’

That, for some reason, made it through the fog of panic clouding Sam’s head.

‘You know my name?’

‘Well, duh, it’s written on your front door. And also on the name badge you forget to take off sometimes. And I may have asked my brother who the pretty, tall guy who’s always insanely overworked and stressed is.’

Gabriel couldn’t just speak English. He was fluent. He didn’t even have an accent.

Sam was so screwed. Stupid. Assuming the guy couldn’t speak his language just because he’s heard him say a few words in a different one. Meanwhile Gabriel had been able to understand every word Sam had said and had said nothing, but let him spill confidential information every day.

‘Why didn’t you tell me you understood me?’ Sam asked, suddenly furious.

Gabriel had the good grace to look uncomfortable. ‘At first I was just… not sure how to address the issue. And the longer I waited the more I saw how much you needed someone to talk to. And, I know it was dumb, and you probably feel all kinds of humiliated right now, but I thought it would help you to have an outlet. Someone to talk to. That’s why I started waiting in the hall for you to get here so we could ride the lift together.’

Sam jolted, having not been aware of that.

Gabriel continued. ‘I know I should have spoken up when you started talking to me about your firm’s client’s confidential info, but by that time, it had gone on so long I just didn’t know how.’

Sam hung his head in his hands. His boss was going to terminate his clerkship. And probably sue him.

Gabriel knelt in front of Sam. ‘Hey, kiddo? It’s alright. I’m nice. I won’t sell your secrets or blackmail you, or anything. Promise.'

Sam looked into the shorter man’s eyes. His face was open, sincere, and those golden eyes looked so earnest Sam couldn’t help but trust him. ‘Alright.’

Gabriel smiled and sat down on the ground beside Sam. ‘Soo, we have time. 20 questions?’

Sam snorted.

‘Seriously. Sam. Come on. Guess. Animal, mineral or vegetable.'

Gabriel talking was infinitely better than Gabriel not talking. He was one of the funniest people Sam had ever met.

Eventually the conversation turned to other things.

Gabriel explained his family history, or the bare bones of it, at any rate. His dad, with his international business trips and 14 kids across 5 continents, all to different mothers, except for Gabriel and his oldest brother, Michael, who were the only two children Chuck had had with his actual wife.

Lucifer being sent over to live with his father by his mother when he’d been a troubled teen.

How he’d just gotten worse and worse since then.

How Gabriel had learned Russian just to get to know his brother, and Lucifer still pushed him away.

Some parts of the story hit too close to home for Sam’s comfort.

Gabriel was telling Sam a story about his youngest brother, Samandriel from Scotland, when the door was wrenched open. Lucifer stuck his head into the elevator.

‘Brat?’ he called.*

Gabriel waved. ‘Vytaschi nas otsyuda, a?’ he asked the dimly visible figure above them.

Sam guessed he was asking for help getting them out.

Lucifer rolled his eyes, but reached out to grab Gabriel’s outstretched hand and pull him out of the elevator. Sam was almost tall enough to reach the floor on his own, but the brothers helped him regardless.

Gabriel saluted Sam, but gave no further acknowledgement of their discussion in front of his brother. Sam waved back as he struggled with the old lock on his front door.

 

As they climbed the stairs together the next day, Gabriel made Sam cry laughing.  
And the next day.  
And the next.

 

Less than a fortnight later, Sam could barely imagine his afternoons without Gabriel cracking dumb jokes on their way up.

 

A month later came the day Sam found Lucifer half dead of an overdose and called Gabe, who’d sent him his number for joke exchanges a few days earlier. The night ended with Gabriel crying in Sam’s arms when the doctor told them Lucifer would be alright, and that he was finally agreeing to rehab.

 

A year and a half later, Sam and Gabriel were riding a different elevator together, to visit Lucifer in the new apartment he’d moved into after finding work as a music teacher.  
Lucifer just laughed at them as he noticed how flushed Gabriel and his fiance looked stepping out of the lift.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Russian translations (@yes-ima-fluffy-unicorn thank you so much!)  
> 1: Brat = brother  
> 2\. Vytaschi nas otsyuda, a? = get us outta here, would ya?


	4. The Incident with the Incredibly Delicious Food

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous asked:  
> "My job requires that I stay in shape yet you torture me with the most amazing food smells WHY’ AU" will you please writer this?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m so sorry anon this is sooo late real life is kicking me in the butt :/

Sam Winchester entered his apartment through the back door and breathed in the air filled with the scent of baking cookies.

He had had it with his stupid neighbor. 

Gabriel was practicing for a cooking competition he was entering to promote his fledgling restaurant, and was therefore baking and roasting and frying at all hours of the day, filling the entire apartment building with wonderful smells.  
And with wonderful excess food.

 

Normally, Sam loved it when Gabriel did this. Inevitably, dozens of mouth-watering “practice” dishes ended up on Sam’s doorstep after Gabriel had overloaded his own and his brothers’ fridges. 

But this time Gabriel’s competition coincided with Sam’s next martial arts competition, which he needed to do well in to maintain his reputation in the dojo he and Dean had founded and ran together.

The food was too much for Sam to eat and maintain his training weight; not to mention it was the wrong sort of food. Too many deserts and not enough carb-y dinners (which, given Gabriel’s restaurant specialized in deserts, Sam had come to expect).  
Sam was feeling awful about letting all that beautiful food pile up in his fridge until it went bad and had to go.

Sam wondered if Gabriel would be open to suggestions about what he could and couldn’t leave on Sam’s door. He was also entering the competition in non-desert categories, after all.

The only problem was Gabriel’s brothers Michael and Castiel had already told him no more sweets, so almost all of the dinner and lunch dishes went to them. Lucifer and Balthazar, the neighbors on Gabriel’s other side, were already complaining that they were putting on weight from all the cakes Gabriel had dumped on them and Gabe’s sister Raphael was refusing anything that wasn’t vegan and gluten free.

Which Sam suspected was more likely to be a clever way of avoiding the Food Apocalypse than to do with any actual dietary requirements on Raphael’s part.

 

Sam sighed as he heard the clink of china being set down on his doorstep. He walked over to the door, meaning to have his talk with Gabriel while the other man was here anyway. 

Sam swung the door open, startling Gabriel who was reaching for the doorbell. intending on doing his usual “ring the bell and flee to his own apartment so Sam couldn’t embarrass him with thanks or praise” routine.

The shorter man grinned weakly at the wall of muscular chest suddenly in front of him.

‘You didn’t think I was the local teenagers leaving cow pies on your doorstep did you?’ Gabriel asked.

Weak or not, the joke might distract Sam from the obvious ogling Gabriel was doing. After all, the guy had three black belts and could probably break Gabriel in half with his pinky finger.  
As usual, the reminder of Sam’s physical prowess sent Gabriel’s thoughts spiraling in the wrong direction. This was exactly why he usually rang the doorbell and escaped before Sam could answer. The damned ninja-man must have been waiting for him today.

‘Just wanted to thank you for all the food, Gabe. It’s amazing. I’ve never eaten better.’ Sam bent down to pick up the dish Gabriel had just set on his doorstep as he spoke, and it didn’t help Gabriel’s thoughts find their way out of the gutter at all.

‘If only the judges thought the same,’ Gabriel said, realizing too late it sounded like he was fishing for compliments.

Sam made a sympathetic noise. ‘I’m sure they will this time. If not, they have no taste anyway.’

Gabriel was thinking of how to excuse himself and scurry back to his kitchen when Sam cleared his throat.

‘So, listen, I’m not trying to insult you, and your cooking really is the best I’ve ever had, but I’m having trouble eating all this food. Is there anyone else who could take some of it?’

Gabriel groaned internally. One more outlet gone. ‘Could you give some to Dean?’ he asked.

Sam shook his head. ‘I tried. He already has a full fridge passed on from Cas.’

Gabriel, having suspected as much, nodded. 'Alright. Maybe I can package some up and send it to dad. Attach some passive-aggressive notes about how much I miss him.’ 

Sam laughed. 'Brilliant idea. And the more you send him the guiltier he’ll feel.’

Gabriel nodded. ‘Perfect. I can even get my siblings in on it. You know Raph and Mikey actually tried to have him declared dead last year? I mean, we know he’s not, but they thought it might grab his attention enough for him to come back. That’s why Luci chucked a hissy fit and moved in with Zar.’

‘I heard. Cas got drunk and moaned about it to Dean. And then they ate an entire frangipane cake and started making out. It was gross.’

‘Excuse me, my frangipane cakes are awesome.’ Gabriel retorted, adopting his best mock-offended look.

Sam rolled his eyes and didn’t bother saying he hadn’t meant the cake. Gabriel had a healthy ego already. ‘Yeah, well, it smells like you’re burning something, so maybe ease up on the bragging, there.’

Gabriel sniffed the air in alarm. Sam was right. He fled back to his own apartment with a squeak, hoping to save his kitchen, though the cake was almost certainly ruined.

 

Sam got home early from his match. Dean had wanted to go out to celebrate Sam’s victory and the boost in customers they were hoping for now that one of them had finally won a title, but Sam was exhausted, and not really in the mood for alcohol after taking a few too many gut blows.

The first thing Sam noticed when he entered the hallway that led to his, Gabriel’s and Lucifer and Balthazar’s apartments was the lack of amazing baking smells.  
There was no light coming through the crack under Gabriel’s front door. The other man must be out. Contemplating where his neighbor could be, Sam had a vague recollection that Gabriel’s cooking competition had been today as well, and he decided to stay up and wait for his neighbor.

He was sure Gabriel had done well, too. Maybe they could celebrate together.

 

The competition was a disaster. He’d been stressed and uncomfortable cooking in front of an audience and stuffed it up. Again. Coming home without a trophy or award, Gabriel slammed the door, not seeing Sam across the hall blinking at him. 

 

The next morning, when Gabriel was thinking about drowning his sorrows just like his failure of a dad, he heard his doorbell buzz.

When he got outside, the doorstep was deserted, but he heard Sam’s door swing shut up the hall. Gabriel looked down to see a plate of chocolate muffins. 

_“I still think your cooking is the best. I know mine doesn’t compare, but you’re probably not in the mood for baking yourself anything. - Sam.”_ Gabriel bit into a muffin and smiled.

At least someone still liked him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyone actually into martial arts and/or cooking competitions who wants to yell at me over inaccuracies, please feel free.

**Author's Note:**

> Things I'm learning from this prompt set: I can't write when I'm sick.


End file.
